On the desolate planet of Morganthus, the last surviving
member of the starship Remus attempts
to escape some unseen threat by sealing himself away in the ship’s morgue but
whatever it is chasing after him, the crew member’s barricade does nothing to
stop it and the man is violently killed by the seemingly invisible assailant.
Back on the Remus’s homeworld of Xeres, the strange, god-like Planet Master, a
robed figure whose face is obscured by an orange glow, is taking part in a
strange game with an old crone named Mitiri (Mary Ellen O’Neil) when he receives
word of the disappearance of the Remus on Morganthus. Surprisingly, Planet
Master seems pleased by this news and is prompted by it to make a particularly
daring move in whatever this game they’re playing is. Mitri is taken aback by his
boldness but he sees what has happened on Morganthus as a sign to put a long
gestating plan into motion and will not be deterred. A rescue mission by the
starship Quest is quickly arranged, to be headed up by Commander Ilvar (Bernard
Beherns) – a puzzling request since Ilvar seems to have been retired from
active duty for a number of years – and manned by a crew personally selected by
Planet Master himself.

And what a crew it is! Captain Trantor (Grace Zabriskie) is
an absolute lunatic suffering from severe PTSD as the result of being the lone
survivor of something called The Hesperus Massacre, the mere mention of which
triggers traumatic flashbacks in the woman. Officer Baelon (Zalman King) is, to
not put too fine a point on it, a complete asshole, who is particularly hostile
to fellow crew member Cabren (Eddie Albert Jr.), very likely due to Cabren’s
relationship with Alluma (Erin Moran), who also joins the crew. Alluma is a
psychic and you’ll be happy to know that in the grand tradition of movie
psychics, her abilities end up being completely useless. Rounding out the crew
are cook Kore (Ray Waltson!), Quuhod (Sid Haig!), a monastic warrior who
eschews firearms for a pair of crystal throwing weapons and barely speaks (Haig
agreed to do the movie on the condition that he could play character as a mute
to get out of having to say some apparently horrendous dialogue.), rookie Cos
(Jack Blessing) who’s so nervous about his first mission out he’s barely
holding it together from the looks of things, and tech officers Dameia (Taaffe
O’Connell) and Ranger. (Robert Englund!) To call the Planet Master’s choice of
personnel a tad questionable is a bit of an understatement.

Things go wrong as soon as The Quest reaches Morganthus.
While in orbit, the ship is seized by some unknown force and pulled down to the
planet’s surface, a rather inhospitable looking graveyard of wrecked ships, and
while the crew comes out unscathed, the rough landing did the Quest no favors.
Not that the ship being fully functional would be much help at the moment, as
whatever snatched the Quest out of orbit won’t let go of it unless they can
find its power source and shut it down. Fortunately, the Quest was put down in
relatively close proximity to the wreck of the Remus and Ilvar dispatches a
team to look for survivors. All they end up finding is corpses, which for
reasons never remotely explained, Baelon immediately incinerates upon
discovery. However, a thorough search of ship reveals there’s still several crew
members unaccounted for and so it’s possible that some remnant of the Remus’s
crew is still alive somewhere. Strangely enough, Alluma’s psychic radar does
detect a lifeform of some sort, though it’s identifiably not human. Even more
confusing, the presence she’s detecting seems to originate with Cos, who spent
the better part of the search through the Remus jumping at shadows. Well, turns
out that Cos had a very good reason to be
afraid, because as soon as everyone else is off the Remus, he gets attacked and
killed by a dog-sized creature that seems to be a mixture of insect and
reptile.

Dameia and Ranger, who are apparently also the ships
surgical team as well as tech crew, perform an autopsy on Cos
and the one corpse found in the Remus that Baelon didn’t reduce to charcoal
briquettes but are unable to determine what killed them. That mystery will have
to wait, because Commander Ilvar’s scans of the nearby area have turned up
something interesting. Something nearby is putting out enough energy to
scramble the Quest’s scanners and that’s enough to convince Ilvar that the
source of whatever is trapping the Quest on Morganthus may lay in that
direction. Another team is dispatched to investigate and this time Ilvar will
join them. What they discover is a massive pyramid, which immediately spooks
out Alluma, as she says she’s never encountered anything in her life that feels
so empty when scanned by her psychic
abilities. Despite her protests, heading inside that pyramid may be the only
way for them to find answers to what is going on.

It goes without saying that the discovery of the pyramid is
the cue for whatever is behind all this to start picking off our cast in
earnest. Ilvar is killed by another alien life form as he rappels down into a
shaft on the side of the pyramid. Quuhod gets attacked by his own weapons
before bizarrely being finished off by his own severed arm! Trantor, believing
that they’re under attack by the same alien force responsible for the Hesperus
Massacre, ends up burned alive and in the most infamous scene in all of GALAXY
OF TERROR, Dameia is overwhelmed by a giant maggot that tears her clothing off
and um, has its way with her before she dies. Ew. As their numbers are whittled
down, the remaining survivors realize that something within the pyramid is
tapping into their subconscious fears and siccing their own personalized id
monster on each of them. They’ll also discover that their walking into this
deathtrap was very much part of that mysterious plan of the Planet Master’s
alluded to in the early scenes and if they want to get out this alive, they’ll
have to figure out what his game is.

In 1970, after spending the previous decade and change
directing several dozen films for American International Pictures, Roger Corman
parted ways with A.I.P. and with his brother Gene, founded New World Pictures
Ltd. Corman’s intent was to take a brief sabbatical and work primarily on the production
side of things for about a year or so before he hopped back into the director’s
chair. Well, as it turns out, New World Pictures would keep Corman so busy on
that end of things that he would never direct another movie but since production
and supervisory roles were where Corman’s real talent lay, I think we can all
agree that things worked out for the best there, right? Anyway, much like
A.I.P. before it, the independent New World’s focus was to be on the creation
and distribution of small scale, low budget exploitation films made to cater to
popular tastes that could be made fast and recuperate their budgets quickly,
while also bolstering their library by picking up the distribution rights for
foreign films by the likes of Kurosawa, Fellini, and Bergman. And also
STARCRASH, for which we are eternally greatful. Think of them as the 70’s and
early 80’s counterpart to Cannon Films and hey, guess who Menaham Golan got his
start with?

As I mentioned, where Corman’s excelled was on the
production side of things, in particular his knack for spotting potential great
talents and motivating them to learn and grow as filmmakers by doing. You were
given an idea to develop into a script and you had so many days to shoot the
movie for so much money. If you’re capable of working under those restrictions,
then you can pretty much do whatever the hell you wanted on the movie. Corman
would be relatively hands off most of the time but wasn’t afraid to pop in and
suggest (often insistently so) changes or ideas that he felt would make the
film more appealing to the markets he would be selling the films too. It was an
approach that worked and if you need evidence thereof just look at the numerous
heavyweight directors, writers, and others who inform so much of modern day
filmmaking that got their start and proved themselves working for the man, a
list that includes the likes of Joe Dante, Paul Bartel, John Sayles, James
Horner, William Stout, Ron Howard, Jonathon Demme and Gale Anne Hurd, not to
mention special effects experts who would work on everything from NIGHTMARE ON
ELM STREET to AVATAR.

However, this was also the time period where the arrival and
massive success of films like JAWS and STAR WARS initiated a major shift in Hollywood filmmaking for better or worse. “What is JAWS,”
Vincent Canby of the New York Times wrote, “but a big budget Roger Corman
picture?” The Hollywood studio machine was now
catering to the exact same audiences that Corman was but were able to throw a ton
more money into it. If he wanted to compete, the famously pennywise producer was
going to have to risk opening up his pocket book a teensy bit more. Therefore,
he needed to be certain that people would come out to see the movies he
produced, and so got into the practice of making movies that mimicked whatever film
was popular at the time just enough to grab the attention of fans looking for a
something familiar. The difference between the best of these and say, the
“mockbusters” shoveled out by the Asylum a couple of decades later is that for
the most part they aimed for something different than simply recreating a more
successful movie for (a whole lot) less money. Instead, they would look at the
most basic, core concepts behind these movies as a jumping off point for
something unique. Yes, Dante’s PIRANHA is about a resort town getting chewed up
and spit out by an aquatic menace but the movie itself is a gleefully self-aware
mixture of ‘50’s “science run amok” and black comedy. BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS
pared down STAR WARS to “Kurosawa jideki film meets WWII dog fight movie” and
gave us SEVEN SAMURAI in space, even bringing in Robert Vaughn to play a riff
on his character from THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN.

GALAXY OF TERROR – submitted as PLANET OF HORRORS, produced
under the title QUEST, and initially released under the truly god-awful title
of MINDWARP: AN INFINITY OF TERROR to tepid response until, in true Corman
fashion, they slapped a new title on it and re-released it -- is an ALIEN
cash-in and isn’t afraid to admit it. But despite the repeated swipes from
Ridley Scott’s film and of H.R. Giger’s design sensibility, I wouldn’t say that
it’s wholly accurate to describe GALAXY OF TERROR as a complete ALIEN
knock-off. Certainly, the film plants itself firmly in much of the same
territory as its inspiration for a good chunk of its first act, what with a
crew setting down on a hostile alien world to explore the wreckage of a derelict
spacecraft. It even cribs the ominous alien pyramid structure from the original
script of ALIEN. (Coincidently, back when ALIEN was known as STARBEAST,
O’Bannon and Shusett had intended to sell the script to Corman to help pave the
way for their dream project, an adaptation of Phillip K. Dick’s “We Can
Remember It For You Wholesale.”) But as GALAXY OF TERROR moves along, it
reveals a movie that shares as much if not more in common with the likes of
FORBIDDEN PLANET or Mario Bava’s PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES as it does Scott’s
film. Furthermore, the fictional universe its set it couldn’t be further
removed from ALIEN and is more like something you’d run across in the pages of
HEAVY METAL or 2000 A.D. magazine. Certainly, off the top of my head, I
couldn’t name any other ALIEN-like which featured a psychic as standard part of
a spaceship crew, a warrior order that wields crystal shuriken, a ruling body led
by an alien demigod who governs by playing what amounts to a gussied up Atari
game with a freakin’ witch or a nebulous psychic threat that unleashes a whole
menagerie of different beasties to dispatch our cast of characters. The result
is something that feels like a grindhouse STAR TREK episode.

That sort of off-kilter, throw it at all wall strangeness
grants GALAXY OF TERROR a considerable amount of charm and part of the allure
of the movie is watching to see just how bizarre it’ll get. That’s certainly
helped by the film’s cast, as you’d be hard pressed to find a movie of this
type with such an eccentric mix of recognizable faces. We’ve got Freddie
Krueger, Captain Spaulding, Laura Palmer’s mom, the guy from THE RED SHOE
DIARIES, Joanie from HAPPY DAYS, and the star of MY FAVORITE MARTIAN all in one
package. (And it could have been even screwier. Mark Hamill was apparently game for a role in this.) But if GALAXY does have one major stumbling block though, it all has
to do with this cast of characters. If there’s one aspect of ALIEN that GALAXY
OF TERROR could have benefited more from following, it’s the way in which ALIEN
takes time establish the personalities, relationships and tensions of the Nostromo’s
crew members before their nasty little stowaway shows up. GALAXY OF TERROR has
an even larger cast and the fact that so much of what befalls the Quest’s crew
hinges on their psychological make-up makes getting to know these people even
more vital. As it stands, the characters are more memorable because of the
disparate actors in the roles and their outlandishly gruesome death scenes and
more often then not, you’ll be left scratching your head trying to figure out
how exactly each person’s death translates to their “greatest fear.” Trantor’s
PTSD, Alluma’s claustrophobia, and Cos’s paranoia aren’t too hard to figure out
but how exactly does one character fearing that he’s too old and out of touch
to be a competent leader lead to him getting killed by blood sucking worms? Or
Quuhod’s weapons and eventually his own body turning against him? Sure, seeing
Freddy Kruger getting menaced by his own evil doppelganger is fun, but why is
he the only one that gets a human manifestation? And for the love of God, how
does Dameia’s disgust at worms translate into her getting raped to death by
what looks like friggin’ Mothra’s larval form!?

Well, I can actually answer that one: it was all Corman’s
idea. Corman had sold GALAXY OF TERROR
to distributors due to the promise of a certain degree of sexual content, most
of it involving Taaffe O’Connell. Apparently he even promised a sex scene
between her and Eddie Albert without telling anyone involved in the actual
making of the movie. So, to add in the sleaze he had sold the film on, Corman
decided at the last minute to change what was originally supposed to be a
straight forward monster attack scene into not only a monster rape scene but
one where the victim seems to actually enjoy the experience! (Corman’s
explanation would be that what Dameia truly feared was her own sexual desires.
Sure thing, Rog.) The film’s director, screenwriters, and Taaffe O’Connell, who
had taken the job because she was drawn the idea of getting to play a rare
non-sexualized role, were not amused. According to the commentary on Shout
Factory’s Corman Classics release, O’Connell even had to talk with her priest
before she agreed to do it -- would I have liked have been a fly on the wall
during that conversation -- while Clark
refused to do it, forcing Corman to come in and handle it himself. Shooting the
scene itself was also a trial, with O’Connell just narrowly avoiding getting
crushed by the immense hydraulic puppet at one point, and it was subjected to
numerous edits and cuts to keep the film from getting slapped with an X-rating.
Thing is, Corman was right. This moment is so completely out of left field and
thoroughly “what the hell?” that it sticks with you more than any other scene
in the film. Being “that movie where a lady gets screwed to death by a giant
slimy maggot” gave GALAXY OF TERROR the kind of sleazy infamy that translates
to ticket sales, video rentals, and cult fascination years later.

Fortunately, the other major reason why GALAXY OF TERROR managed the longevity its had is considerably more pleasant than That Scene. Reports
vary on how much GALAXY OF TERROR cost to make exactly – one apocryphal story
has it that Corman was able to recoup the film’s budget by simply renting a
couple sets out for an Italian watch commercial one weekend – but it couldn’t
have been much. Therefore one can’t help but be impressed at what the film’s
production team was able to accomplish on such a limited budget. You wouldn't believe that much of movie's sets a props were built out of spray-painted cardboard and discarded scraps as the production
design on the ship and pyramid interiors, the effects of the ship’s take off,
the matte paintings of Morganthus’s storm wracked surface, and the creature
work are all of a surprisingly high standard. Of course, that means when the
production design does slip up, such as how it doesn’t try to hide the fact the
restraints used by the Quest’s crew to strap themselves down during hyper space
jumps are just car seatbelts, complete with visible logos, it sticks out all
that much more. But we really shouldn’t be too surprised that they were able to
accomplish this much, as the teams in charge of these aspects of the
movie were headed up by a hungry young filmmaker by the name of James Cameron, who Corman had hired on as a production assistant and effects technician for BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS, wherein he was responsible for designing a number of the spaceships featured in that film.

GALAXY OF TERROR would be his second feature for Corman, (between the two films Cameron and his crew would also work on a little film called ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK) and you could make a fairly strong argument that GALAXY was more the James
Cameron Show than it was Bruce Clark’s. The future TERMINATOR director not
only had a hand in painting the concept art, designed most of the creatures -- an
exception would be the one that settles Baelon’s hash. That had been donated to
the production by a former CormanEFX
artist and written into the movie at the last minute – acted as a second unit
director, and by all accounts, served as Roger Corman's representative there on the set. It shows and with Cameron's fingerprints all over this movie, it wouldn't be too hard to view GALAXY OF TERROR as a warm-up for what he would eventually do with ALIENS. Some scenes even presage the later movie: try not to think of the Space Marine's initial sweep of Hadley's Hope when the Quest's crew investigate the wreckage of the Remus or how the alien pyramid paved the way for the xenomorph's hive. And Cameron wasn't the only GALAXY OF TERROR alumni to work on ALIENS either, the two films also share visual effects supervisor Robert Skotak and Hudson himself, Bill Paxton, worked on GALAXY as a carpenter.

By the way, if you ever get your hands on Shout Factory's disc, I recommend watching the behind-the-scenes documentary on it. There's a whole segment of it devoted to anecdotes about what it was like working with the famously confrontational filmmaker and not all of them are positive ones.

Would I recommend GALAXY OF TERROR to just anyone? Probably not. The lack of characterization, sometimes odd performances from its eclectic cast, and moments of gratuitous sleaze and extreme gore would likely turn a quite a few people off to it. But, if you have a love for a bygone era of B-movie filmmaking, are interested in seeing a small if notable step in the career of one of the most influential popular filmmakers of the past thirty years, or are just hankering for something incredibly strange, give it a try.